This Fast Food Joint Is Legal Pot Smokers' Favorite, According to Survey

Legal marijuana is big business. In Colorado alone, pot sales exceeded $1.3 billion dollars last year. But that's not all: Think of all the other businesses that can see a pot boost. The bong and blacklight industries are likely reaping the benefits. Though the financials aren't entirely clear, legal pot has got to be good for Netflix, too. And, of course, all those additional munchies certainly can't be hurting the fast food industry. With that last point in mind, cannabis industry financial news site Green Market Report, along with help from the self-explanatorily named Consumer Research Around Cannabis, conducted a study to figure out the favorite fast food stops for stoners.

The survey looked at an undisclosed number of people in 25 markets across the U.S., asking them about their marijuana consumption and their eating habits at a number of well-known fast food chains. Specifically, the researched sought out "adults who have purchased cannabis/marijuana from a legally authorized retailer/dispensary" and "that have visited fast food restaurants in the past 4-weeks." According to the study's findings, an impressive 43.4 percent of this group have been to a McDonald's in the past four weeks, significantly above Taco Bell, which was second among the group with 18.3 percent of these pot smokers dropping by.

But though McDonald's might have won in pure visits, the Golden Arches wasn't getting as big of a marijuana bump. The survey also looked at how much more likely the target pot smoking group would be to go to these restaurants compared to the average consumer. Whereas these stoners were only 10 percent more likely to drop by McDonald's than average, they were 43 percent more likely to go to Taco Bell. The takeaway is something we all subconsciously already knew: You're more likely to go to Taco Bell when you're high.

"McDonald's wins by virtue of the sheer number of locations—by default really," Jeff Stein, Vice President of Consumer Research Around Cannabis, stated in the report. "Those competitors which better understanding cannabis users and their consumer habits can certainly close the gap by integrating what they learn through their marketing efforts."